Problems Solved
QI bought my first tablet, a Kindle Fire 7, on Black Friday for £30. I can’t complain about the price but I’ve discovered the app store doesn’t have all the same apps as my iphone. In particular, I wanted to use the Swiftkey swipe-typing keyboard that I’ve installed on my smartphone but it seems that’s not available for Kindle. Do you know why this is? Is there any way to get the iphone app working on my Kindle Fire? A friend says I should look in the Google Play Store but I can’t find that either. Sally-ann Davies
AYour Kindle runs a forked version of the Android operating system, called Fire OS. This is not compatible with IOS, the operating system that runs on your iphone, which is why you can’t run the Apple version of Swiftkey on your Fire.
Because Fire OS is based on Android it is actually capable of running very many apps designed for Android, including the Android version of Swiftkey. However, that particular app is not yet available in Appstore, which is Amazon’s name for its own app store — so you can’t obtain it that way.
Tablets running ‘real’ Android usually include Play Store, which is the app store run by Google. This is what your friend was talking about, and Swiftkey is indeed in the Play Store. However, the Fire does not come with Play Store, so you can’t get Swiftkey that way, either.
But there is a way to get Swiftkey — and other Android apps — running on your Fire, and that’s to use a technique known as ‘side loading’. You’ll first need to find and download an app’s installation file, known as an Android Package Kit or APK. Some developers make these freely available from their own websites, while others will have to be sourced from elsewhere.
Swiftkey falls into the latter category, though its APK is available from a few reliable sources. That means you can use side-loading to install it on your Fire. However, you proceed at your own risk because you’ll be installing software that hasn’t been officially vetted by Amazon or Google.
Grab your Kindle Fire, then tap Apps followed by Settings and then Applications. Flip the ‘Apps from Unknown Sources’ switch to the On position, and then tap OK to confirm. Now launch the Kindle Silk browser and visit www.snipca.com/26507. This is the Apkmirror website run by the trusted Android Police website ( www.androidpolice.com). Click the link for the latest (non- beta) version of Swiftkey, which when we visited was 6.7.3.28, and then click for the latest ‘arm’ (ARM) version for ‘Android 4.1+’. Now click the Download APK button.
The download should take just a few seconds. Tap Silk’s menu button (three horizontal lines) and then choose Downloads. Now tap the Swiftkey APK file just downloaded, followed by Next and then Install. Finally, return to your Fire’s Settings screen to flip the ‘Apps from Unknown Sources’ back to Off.